Naked in New York (1993)
from Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy; Greg Wroblewski)

Here's your cultural aptitude quiz for the day.

"Life is Beautiful" is to Robin Williams

as "Naked in New York" is to .....?

The answer is Woody Allen. Just as "Life is
Beautiful" is a Robin Williams movie that doesn't actually star or
have anything to do with Robin Williams, "Naked in New York" is a
Woody Allen movie that actually has nothing at all to do with Woody
Allen.

Check out this summary:

A neurotic, sexually clumsy, easily embarrassed,
red-headed, Jewish New York writer (Eric Stoltz) has some raw writing talent, but
not the social skills or appearance to market himself. He also tries
to work out a relationship with a cute protestant girl whose
lecherous boss, competing for her favors, is as suave and unbearably
handsome as James Bond. (It is, in fact, Timothy Dalton).

NUDITY REPORT

Mary-Louise Parker is topless in a sex scene,
and in a very distant scene on the beach.

Eric Stolz is naked from the rear in an early
scene, and then does full frontal nudity in a final dream
sequence.

The narrator tells the story in flashback while
looking directly at the camera and talking to the audience.
Throughout the movie, he has conversations with imaginary characters
in his past or elsewhere.

Woody Allen once quipped that he failed a college
philosophy exam when he looked into the soul of the boy sitting next
to him. I presume that boy was the author of this script, who
returned the favor by looking into Woody's soul to write this film.

Martin Scorsese produced this film, which is
fundamentally a pleasant and sometimes insightful story about
likeable people. The secondary cast is outstanding. Kathleen Turner,
Roscoe Lee Jones, Tony Curtis, Ralph Macchio, Whoopi Goldberg, and
Jill Clayburgh fill out the dramatis personae, and various
New York celebrities (Arthur Penn, William Styron, e.g) make cameo
appearances to provide authentic Big Apple flavor.

The female lead is Mary-Louise Parker, who is
fascinating in a certain way. She's not a beautiful woman, and
sometimes photographs quite poorly, and yet there is something
singular about her - something closed, and distrustful, and
vulnerable, that makes her seem to be a person who has been hurt
badly before, and is afraid of deep feelings, even afraid to look
someone squarely in the eye. That quality renders her very human and
sexy in a unique way.

As Woody Allen movies go, Naked in New York is a
pretty good one, but certainly not a great one, and I was having
reservations about typing "pretty good" in the previous sentence
because, although I liked most of the film, I was frustrated when it
limped off into an indecisive ending.

The
Critics Vote ...

Super-panel consensus: just less than
three stars. James
Berardinelli 2.5/4, Roger Ebert 3/4.

The meaning of the IMDb
score: 7.5 usually indicates a level of
excellence equivalent to about three and a half stars
from the critics. 6.0 usually indicates lukewarm
watchability, comparable to approximately two and a half stars
from the critics. The fives are generally not
worthwhile unless they are really your kind of
material, equivalent to about a two star rating from the critics,
or a C- from our system.
Films rated below five are generally awful even if you
like that kind of film - this score is roughly equivalent to one
and a half stars from the critics or a D on our scale. (Possibly even less,
depending on just how far below five the rating
is.

My own
guideline: A means the movie is so good it
will appeal to you even if you hate the genre. B means the movie is not
good enough to win you over if you hate the
genre, but is good enough to do so if you have an
open mind about this type of film. C means it will only
appeal to genre addicts, and has no crossover
appeal. (C+ means it has no crossover appeal, but
will be considered excellent by genre fans, while
C- indicates that it we found it to
be a poor movie although genre addicts find it watchable). D means you'll hate it even if you
like the genre. E means that you'll hate it even if
you love the genre. F means that the film is not only
unappealing across-the-board, but technically
inept as well. Any film rated C- or better is recommended for
fans of that type of film. Any film rated B- or better is
recommended for just about anyone. We don't score films below C-
that often, because we like movies and we think that most of
them have at least a solid niche audience. Now that you know
that, you should have serious reservations about any movie below
C-.

Based on this description, this is a C. Pretty
decent film in the Woody Allen tradition of neurotic New York
artists.